Estal didn’t get the joke. Not the beginning or the end.

Why was a circus in the middle of a jungle?

There was no punch line and she was beginning to get a little ticked off by the randomness this Dungeon had at times. It was like people who tried too hard to be quirky but came off as childish... not that Estal knew anything about that, of course.

Her personality had remained pretty much constant her entire life. Everyone was out to get her and only Estal could make herself shine.

The tunnel the ghoul led them down was... she had to admit, beautiful. The curving mushrooms that seemed to grow in coiling vines around support pillars emitted enchanting light that made the stone around it sparkle like trapped stars. For precious seconds it felt like they were back outside in some magical forest under the night sky where things like giant bees or murderous little people or ghouls didn’t exist.

Estal gave this silent ‘ringmaster’ a once over from the back, taking in his dark outfit, hat, and gloved hands. Ghouls had never been an issue where she grew up or at her school. As far as she knew, Ghouls tended to wander the countryside where they could sneak about unseen near unprotected gravesites or battlefields, feeding off rotting remains like filthy carrion beetles.

Estal had never heard of one that walked on two legs with a strong posture, let alone was able to communicate slightly with odd gestures. She had also never heard of one being so silent. Her textbooks said Ghouls were snarling hissing creatures who feared fire.

Ghouls were monsters, technically. They didn’t get classes, they got species ranks... normally, but this Dungeon was ‘quirky’ so Estal guessed none of that applied to anything and all that she knew about the outside world was worth nothing in this weird hole.

She was ranting, but she stopped cold with the rest of her party at the sight of the tent. It filled the massive cavern before them in bright reds striped with black, the curving top leading to a massive crowning point which the top of the pillar used to hold the cloth up was visible.

The mushrooms around them had grown to cluster in pulsing spotlights that occasionally shifted or danced as a thin mist clung to the ground, obscuring their feet. The massive gorilla creature stalked past them, shaking the ground slightly as it stood guard over the entrance.

She wanted to speak, but the entire cavern began to grow dim as mushrooms seemed to lose their luminences one by one until the only light was a perfect circle around the Ghoul- Renny.

He slowly raised both gloved hands, not even disturbing the air in his passing as if he leaked silence, and snapped his fingers that produced no sound. Something must have happened because the inside of the tent lit up with a slow winding tune that grew faster and faster until a full-blown heart-thumping symphony was firing off.

The tent entrance opened up grandly on its own and Renny bowed once, beginning to move backwards without... walking. It was one of the creepiest things Estal had ever seen. Renny was moving backwards without breaking his bow like the mist was carrying him into the tent of its own accord.

“That’s slightly alarming,” Hazhur announced as Renny’s figure vanished into the tent where a soft pulsing red light swallowed him.

“Wonder what this is?” Karn asked as he ran his hand over what seemed to be a locked cabinet filled with glowing treats of sorts. The stand called it ‘Glorious Popcorn’ and required a ‘Circus Ticket’ to purchase some.

“Tourist trap bait. It likely tastes of sawdust and is painted to draw the easily distracted in,” Estal said as Silver wandered over to the tent as if drawn to the music like a moth to a flame.

“If I see one clown, I’m layering so many barriers in one place I’ll create a violent air vacuum when they pop,” Estal muttered to the cave and stalked forward.

---

Mharia had... avoided the circus.

The lich-turned-fairy couldn’t decide if it was fear or trauma that kept her away. Ghouls weren’t the best creatures when one was alive... but they were predators of all things dead and even one as powerful as she had been... still held an irrational fear of Ghouls.

Ghouls weren’t so bad to deal with, but if they became feral or worse gathered under a Ghoul Lord? She shivered, not wanting to think about it.

Nature refused a vacuum. Death disliked an uneven playing board.

As far as she knew, if you existed in this world? Something could kill you eventually.

Worms had birds. Rats had birds and cats. Humans had humans.

Undead had Ghouls.

Ghouls had fire, which was something at least.

Still, Mharia couldn’t put this off forever since there was no telling how long she’d be in Delta’s Dungeon. She wasn’t even technically dead anymore, more a mana-construct than a lich-fairy, so she had no reason to fear the Ghoul who was... a contract-monster and still very able to devour her.

She shivered but snuck into the tent after the group.

The inside of the tent was a dizzying spiraling of red flashing lights and shadows that even threw her off-balance for a moment until all the lights snapped to Renny in the center of the space, sending a shudder up Mharia’s spine.

Renny held a cane and began to tap the ground and, surprisingly, it actually made noise as it did so, a repeating thunderous bang that sounded like a heartbeat with the tent acting as a ribcage.

“He would make his father proud,” Delta’s voice said and Mharia tried not to show how spooked she was as she startled.

“Ghouls reproduce- urgh, never mind. He doesn’t technically have a father,” Mharia muttered to the forming orange avatar of the Dungeon.

“Family is more than blood, you should know that,” Delta replied and Mharia was quiet for a time, an ache in her long dead heart for Sun, her friend that was so far from mortal it wasn’t funny.

The group panicked as all around them, bones began to rise out the ground in a swirling tornado of white as around Renny, the Circus of the Damned’s’ performers appeared around Renny in various poses.

Everything from painted clowns, their eye sockets painted with gold stars and red noses held on by string while behind them lions, wolves, and more posed as trained, their bones glistening around the red uniforms.

Strong-skeletons lifted weights as unseen stagehands roamed the spotlights all over the tent.

From a rip in the tent, Wilhelm jumped in beating his chest as Renny’s cane continued tapping a musical tempo.

It was such a spectacular scene that even Mharia’s usual acidic words failed to find a target for some time as the crew set up stunts, high-wires, while the various stage animal-skeleton broke apart, forming unique chimera forms to the delight of Karn who had apparently never seen a circus either.

Delta took a seat in the audience beaming as she watched the show. At the back, Devina, Luna, Giant, and Rale all watched the show with interest as even the Pygmies took spots in the rafters for the event.

Then just as the music and displays hit a crescendo, Renny tapped his cane once more and the tent went dark except for the single spotlight on the ghoul ringleader.

Slowly, Renny raised his cane to the roof of the tent where the spotlights illuminated a highwire stretched across the space between two platforms. Renny then pointed to the group with his other hand, smiling wide and demonic.

Mharia might not like the ghoul, but she liked where this was going.

---

“Why me?” Estal demanded as she slowly pulled herself up another rung.

“I’m in heels!” she complained to herself as she moved ever higher.

Of course, she had to do the highwire thing because she had ‘barriers if she went splat’. Hazhur was getting shot out of that cannon if it was a test and Estal would ignite it herself and point it at the ground!

Just as she reached the top, she held onto the pole for support as she looked over the wire as it shone in the spotlight. Next to her, a rattling noise indicated movement of bones and some skeleton’s limbs crawled up to the platform, gripping each other to form a ‘pole’ for her to use for balance.

“Would it kill you to give me a real pole?” she hissed and the end of the pole formed a thumbs up of encouragement.

She took the cursed thing and eyed the wire with a gulp.

Estal was not afraid of heights, but it was a high place inside the Circus of the Damned on a thin wire with everyone watching. Being made fun of was a bigger fear for Estal than breaking her neck.

Education as a teenager had really messed up her priorities.

She focused and as she tested the wire, her barrier failed to form on the tip of her heels which usually avoided the issue of wearing heels in the first place.

Some sort of anti-magic wire?

She kicked off her heels, leaving her in her bare feet and threw them at her cousin who caught them with an exasperated look as she took another step onto the wobbling wire.

“Just pretend you’re walking to class because the girls stole your shoes again. Cold sharp paved hallways, careful where you step, Esty,” she muttered to herself and took another step, nearly falling on the first leg of the journey.

She used the bone-pole (and promised herself to never call it that again) to slowly work her way forward, adjusting to the challenge with some effort. Just as she passed the halfway mark, something banged and a skeleton went flying past her face with a shriek as it was fired from the cannons around the area. Estal wobbled horribly, swearing so loud that Silver gasped.

More skeletons flew overhead, catching each other on swinging handlebars.

“Walk, walk, walk,” Estal commanded herself in a high-pitch screech of terror. To her horror, a performing skeleton began walking the wire from the other side—but upside down, as if gravity meant nothing to him.

“Set the rope on fire!” she heard that damn fairy yell from somewhere.

Just as she was about to make it to the other side, her mind turning to pure animalistic instinct to keep moving, the bone-...the pole broke apart in her hand, falling away to the ground below. Her vision tilted to the left and she made a split second to leap for it, flailing her arms out in an attempt to catch the platform before she fell.

Her fingers barely brushed the wooden platform’s edge and then she was falling.

A net made of near translucent silk caught her, barely reflecting any light from the spotlights.

She laid there as the net was slowly lowered and her team surrounded her. She blinked back tears and avoided their gaze.

Estal has been right there and she missed.

Renny bent down and his smile was just the small one as he handed her something.

It was a key.

“B-But I failed,” she said, not taking it yet.

Renny looked unsure on how to convey himself and Mharia appeared as if pushed onto the floor by someone.

“It was never about succeeding, but ‘being part of the show’. You were... entertaining I guess. Usually these things would require a few more ‘shows’ to get the key, but Renny was really impressed by your effort,” Mharia translated with a sulk.

“You wanted him to set me on fire!” Estal accused and Mharia sighed.

“I know and I’m disappointed it didn’t happen either,” she admitted.

Estal took the key and then Renny presented her with a golden ticket as well and then walked off with a cheerful trot to his step.

“This popcorn better be worth it,” Estal said darkly as Hazhur handed her back her shoes.

The machine outside the tent dispensed a single piece of the food within and Estal felt cheated. She glared at the golden thing before she popped it into her mouth.

“Too much butter,” she muttered.

She turned and her body slowly began to grow warm. Estal paused as the others watched her for reactions, curious about the snacks.

For blissful seconds, every stress, worry, self-doubt, and negative thing Estal associated with being herself melted away and she was left standing there as she was surrounded by the sheer bliss of life.

She was alive! Estal knew magic! Estal was way prettier than Hazhur!

Life was...

Her eyes welled with tears abruptly and she felt no shame in shedding them because shame didn’t exist for her.

Even as the effect died down, the lingering enlightenment swirled around her as if the popcorn had opened doors she had never known.

It took her a second to notice Karn was carrying her through the jungle, Estal having stopped paying attention to things like the physical world in her elevated state.

“I need more tickets!” she wailed.

“No way, you hugged me. That popcorn is dangerous,” Hazhur grunted. Estal wrinkled her nose.

She did what?

“Put me down,” she told Karn as they looked to be close to the massive tree at the end of the Floor where the metal gates were under its roots.

“Is that it?” she asked quietly, still trying to fight off the weird urge to beam at everything.

“Everything we’ve uh... suffered for is beyond that gate. The Boss room,” Hazhur agreed.

“Will it want us to show the power of friendship? Do a song? Maybe it’ll let us pass if we tell it a joke?” Karn mused and Estal couldn’t argue, the boss was usually the lesson of the floor summed up in any other Dungeon.

“You never know... it might want to fight,” Hazhur pointed out.

“Psh, I’ll just bare my heart to it and it’ll cry and we can get some treasure and leave,” Estal said, stalking forward.

“We should also mention Delta a lot, I think that’s good,” Hazhur agreed.

They opened the first gate.

---

Inside the boss room, Wyin opened one of her glowing amber-filled eyes.

Around her were various carvings of adventurers she had made in her spare time... in a single instant of one of her branches circling the room with a high pitched whistle, all their heads were cut clean off their stone bodies.

“I wonder what will flow first? Tears or blood?” she mused, her thick lips pulling into a pouty smile.

---

Fera looked up from wiping down the bar with a frown. Standing at her door was a familiar figure.

“Ruli,” she said and the woman’s eyes were yellow in the gloom until she stepped forward.

“The outsiders,” the woman said simply and Fera wiped the bar a few more times then nodded.

“We have some, but they didn’t pass my way,” she said and this seemed to throw the woman for a moment.

“Then how did they get to the other floor?” she questioned and Fera wasn’t willing to give up Dungeon secrets so easily.

“There are ways that don’t involve passing through the Swarthy Hog, girl. Drink before you go stomping onwards?” she asked and Ruli hesitated as if torn between concern for Delta, her duty, and a free drink.

“They are in the hands of Wyin if my rumor mill is true,” she said casually and this made Ruli blink then smile as she took a seat.

“Well, I hate to barge in so early they don’t get the full experience before I drag them off to Durence,” Ruli agreed, her mane of dark hair swept back as she relaxed.

“They aren’t bad folks really,” Fera had to admit from what she observed.

“Not about the characters, it's about respect really. If people think they can ignore my Ma and the other elders to enter Delta, it sends the idea we’re weak and nothing attracts the worst kinds of people like weakness,” Ruli sighed as she nursed her drink.

“We can take care of ourselves,” Fera felt the need to remind her.

“You’re already taking care of a lot, let us in the town handle the outsiders. Even a gal like Delta is gonna need a break from the Calcs, the scum, and the Knights,” she said, drinking with a deep gulp.

“Delta likes people,” Fera said quietly.

“She’s not going to like these people,” came the dark response.

---

Across the land, carriages rode out blazing with the symbols of Fairplay, the King, and a lone dark carriage with a doll-like maid.

All of them making a beeline for one little town.